89% of companies believe that if they do not develop and adopt a big data analytics strategy, that they could lose both market share and momentum.

Why? Because big data tells you things about the world, and about your business that you didn’t know before. And as more and more of your competitors adopt data strategies, they will learn more and more about your industry, putting you at a disadvantage. It is quickly becoming the “new thing” in business.

Luckily, it is quickly becoming easier and easier to adopt a big data strategy.

Step 1: What is Big Data?

The first step is to learn what Big Datareally is. Understand it first, in order to appreciate its value to your company.

Step 2: Get Comfortable With the Idea of Using Big Data

The definition may scare you, because it is a little mind-boggling and difficult to comprehend. However, it is not as big and scary as it seems. It is also not as costly as it seems. The Internet of Things (IoT) movement is making collection much easier, and the cloud is making storage much easier. Even analytics are becoming easier for companies of all sizes. If you don’t have enough money to spend on hiring a whole team of data analysts and data scientists, don’t sweat! There are firms out there that specialize in this that can analyze your data for a much lower cost than hiring a team.

Step 3: Ask Yourself These Questions to Develop a “Big Data Plan”

A good first question to ask yourself is, “what do we have?” Then identify what kind of data you think you are missing that you may need. This will help you identify what kind of data to collect. Many companies think that simply collecting a lot of data is a “data strategy.” However, data is only useful if it is relevant to your company. Furthermore, collecting a lot of data can make it more difficult for a data analyst to extract information and insight from that data. Having a lot of data makes the analyzing process more difficult, as they have to sift through all of the irrelevant information (and initially decide what information is irrelevant in the first place).

Next ask, “What assumptions do I have about my company?” This is a great question to ask, as it is a great starting point for companies that don’t have a big data analytics plan already in place. At this point, much of what you know (or rather, think you know) about your company are based on assumptions. You may have reports that tell you things, but this data can be manipulated and often comes from many, disparate sources. Because of this, you may not be getting accurate information.

Therefore, a good starting point is to test your hypothesis about your assumptions of your company. This also makes it easier for a data scientist to determine where to start…and you never know, along the way, he or she may find something else that will be useful.

Big Data analyitics is intended to be used for the purpose of making connections and discovering insights that humans may miss or take longer to uncover. With the recent announcement that companies have been using Big Data to gain information on their own employees, it may be time to question the lack of limitations surrounding Big Data. Is it okay to use Big Data to spy on people ?

Big Data is used to study the behaviors of millions of consumers everyday so what makes this incident any different? When companies look at consumer behavior, it is done with the motive of ensuring customer satisfaction and retention by knowing what individualized customers want. The issue is that when companies use Big Data to spy on the behaviors of their employees, they are not doing it with the employee’s best interest in mind. Employers are studying their employees’ online activity to determine which individuals may be searching for other jobs, are more likely to develop a serious illness or even those who are planning to start a family.

Instead of encouraging company culture and facilitating open communication with employees, companies are taking the sneaky route to protect themselves from losing workers. It is understandable for companies to be concerned about losing employees and the need to maintain production, but does this give them the right to essentially spy on their own people? It is important to remember that big data is simply a tool and that it is up to the person using it to gain ethical insights, not sneaky ones.

The majority of adults indulge in the occasional glass of wine or beer, some more than others, but never the less liquor is a consistently successful industry. The issue is that there are so many players in the field that competition is constantly on the rise. With a continual stream of new products being released how can businesses set themselves apart to gain a competitive edge? How can businesses get more accurate and up to date feedback from their consumers?

When Big Data is used as an analytics tool it has proven to provide invaluable results. There is such a wide demographic of alcohol consumers that it becomes difficult to track consumer trends and acquire better marketing techniques. Big Data analytics can dig out the patterns in consumer trends and give the manufacturer feedback on where they need to improve to be more successful.

This insightful podcast reveals some great advice for beer and liquor vendors through using Big Data as a tool to better manage development as well as customer satisfaction!

Check out this podcast and learn how liquor vendors and manufacturers can take the lead against competition and up their annual sales!

We are racing forward to an era of hyper-connectivity. Objects now have the ability to communicate with each other, all using DATA!

The Internet of Things is happening now!

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term that has been thrown around for a few years now, but many of us may still not fully understand what it means.

The IoT refers to a network of physical objects or “things” that have the capabilities to both collect and exchange any amount of data. They do this through a variety of software, electronics, sensors, and network connectivity.

So many devices that we own are connected to this “Internet of Things”, and we are using this network of data everyday to make our lives easier. This includes everything from cell phones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of. If it has an on and off switch, then chances are good that it is connected to the IoT.

Now that more and more objects are connected to the IoT, those objects can all communicate to optimize day-to-day practices, create new opportunities, and save us money!

This is a great video looking at 7 bind-blowing facts of the Internet of Things.

“In 2008, there were already more objects connected to the internet than people.”

“The ATM was one of the first objects of the Internet of Things, dating back to 1974.”

“This year we will have 4.9 Billion connected things.”

“By 2020, we will have 6.1 Billion smartphone users.”

“The global market for wearable devices has grown 223% in 2015.”

“By 2020, a quarter of a billion vehicles will be connected to the internet.”

There is data that can be found in every industry and profession out there- from healthcare to professional sports. If the legal profession is meant to be involved in all of these as well, one question comes to the front of my mind: how can big data help the legal profession?

Let’s start of by stating that there is so much data being collected around the world, and depending on how it is stored, catalogued and indexed, it can take a person days or weeks to sort through. Thankfully in today’s world, however, we have the luxury of programs and computers- computers that can go through this data instantly. Having these programs and applications accessible to us can instantly bring down the cost of analyzing the data, provided you get it into the right format.

Let’s take an example of a case involving product liability. There is a product that is defective. Where does big data come in?

Well now you have all of the records from the creation of that product: the memos, the mockups, and drawings. You have everything that had to do with the end product. You may even have the reviews and testimonials- good or bad. What would have taken months to go through by hand may now take an hour with some computer application. This is because the computer is going to search for certain words, and if the attorney picks the right words and the data is set up in the right format, the attorney now has everything they need at their fingertips. And all in a matter of minutes!

One may think it would be enough as an attorney to go out there and say ‘this product is defective and here are 500,000 complaints about it.’ The reality is that you can actually go one step further with the tools that are now given to us. The attorney can go back into all of the 500,000 complaints and determine what the common component is- and maybe that common component is user error. Then the tables suddenly turn and it is not the product- it is the user!

Big data can now help lead attorneys to answers that they may have never gotten a chance to come to with time and money constraints. Whatever side may be benefitting, information is power and big data is providing just that!